QUALITYWORKS.

Clever ideas that are really worthwhile

Quality is not only to be found in LANXESS products, but also in the minds of its employees. Your ideas have enabled these chemical specialists to save some 2.3 million euros in 2016. Employees in the German LANXESS companies – including those in the ARLANXEO Joint Venture – submitted a total of 2,442 improvement proposals.

After all, who knows his/her own workplace better than the person who works there on a daily basis? This has become one of the basic LANXESS principles, and for many years now the Company has been encouraging employees to make proposals for improvements in their own areas. The ideas submitted undergo a careful feasibility study and if they are adopted their sponsors are rewarded with a salary bonus. In 2016 LANXESS paid out a total of 800,000 euros to employees in Germany as part of this initiative.

Creativity-driven savings

This level of creativity creates big savings for the chemical company, making a long-term contribution to its success. In total, 902 improvement proposals were made over the last year. Amongst these there were 20 proposals with an annual return of more than 25,000 euros – twelve of which even led to a return in excess of 50,000 euros.

“The Ideas Management Program was an outstanding success in 2016. Over the past year, our employees have once again developed and implemented numerous high-quality and high-value improvement suggestions,” according to LANXESS AG Labor Director and board member Rainier van Roessel.

Particularly good suggestions

Examples of particularly good ideas that won awards last year include:
Two employees from the Inorganic Pigments Business Unit in Krefeld- Uedingen suggested an improved process for replacing the mechanical seals on the stirring tanks. This improvement is leading to annual cost savings of some 113,000 euros. Thanks to another idea put forward by a small team of production employees, the loading process time for iron-oxide paste will be shortened, enabling an increase in volume of approximately 1300 tons.

An employee from the LANXESS-subsidiary company Saltigo GmbH in Leverkusen had a very good idea that helped improve the operating results. As a result of these ideas, volume savings on solvents and combustion costs have been achieved in a multistage synthesis chain.
This year, employees are once again being invited to develop ideas to improve work processes.